Not So Live From The Other Side

Wow.

I have just returned from the best event I have ever attended.  What you get as a competitor is unparalleled -- heck, you get a bucket full of NICE swag just for showing up!  The clinics, the parties, The Derby!, OH MY!  The experience as a core team member is phenomenal.

Baby animals cry if you don't jump them.

There are pictures to share and stories to tell.  I met some new and amazing people, artists, product designers, facility builders, and officials, all of whom work untiringly for the sport and for those who attend, out of the sheer force of love.  Every time I work at an event, I learn more and see our eventing world from yet another new angle.  To do so from perhaps the most beautiful amateur facility that is generously opened to us on the east coast, with a group of talented individuals at the top of their game, is a privilege.

For now, it will have to wait until I have a bit more consciousness.  If you have never been intimately involved with putting on even a horse trial, you cannot begin to imagine how hard people work, most with no reward beyond the grins on riders' faces, and how long it takes to put all that together for you - it's exhausting!  It is also thanks to those people that we had only two minor rider falls due to rider error, no injuries, no one who got lost, perfect footing, an exquisite XC course, and a level of detailed preparedness for ANYTHING that the competitors had no inkling of! 

I will say, though, CONGRATULATIONS to all the competitors who successfully arrived and rode (heck, getting there with a sound horse is challenge enough!!).  And to those who completed this special opportunity, I envy and salute you.  One day, with hard work, I aim to be you, if the horse stars would care to align for me.

For the rest of you out there, I can't encourage you strongly enough to enter these long format events -- they are in danger of disappearing forever and with them, an indescribable educational experience in horsemanship and partnership that you simply will not get anywhere else, something in that category of "you don't know what you are missing until you participate yourself."  Without your entries, we cannot keep going.  What you get for your fee is an incredible bargain that I will describe in more detail later.   However, there may not be that many times you can say, "Maybe next year..." (of course, no one can control soundness, sigh).  I will keep doing everything I can to support these events because I have seen it with my own eyes:

Every person matters.

Categories: goals, horse trials, long format, show, Southern Eighths, volunteering